


Severed

by Harukami



Category: DRAMAtical Murder
Genre: M/M, Other, weird decapitation mindscape stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 20:23:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1239598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harukami/pseuds/Harukami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set on Mink's bad end.</p>
<p>I keep seeing really great Mink/Aoba decapitation fanart on my tumblr dash (I'M SORRY FOR MY TASTES I REALIZE HOW THAT SENTENCE READS) and I wanted to indulge in some hideous decap sexy times but this came out instead.</p>
<p>(I'm sorry you all know me).</p>
<p>uhhhh tw gore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Severed

He realizes it the moment the knife begins to cut into his neck. He realizes it the moment that the other one's false bravado and laughing longing for death and destruction and to be allowed to finally stop wanting something he's not able to have gives away into fear and he falls back into and through Aoba:

_This is me._

His consciousness takes back over as the knife slices halfway; he can feel it grind against his spine, tries to let out a cry. The others memories have bled into his in some last great attempt at self-defense and he remembers everything: his childhood, his teenage years, that voice and what that voice was to him, the meaning behind his headaches and his blackouts. He remembers what _just happened_ as well, he remembers failing Scrap and warping Mink's wish so that the only thing he wants now is to wrap Aoba in the protectiveness of death. 

_You aren't protecting me_ , he tries to cry out. _That isn't a demon, it's just me_ but the pain is overwhelming; even though he knows it's an illusion, that it can't be real, because this place isn't real, it's just an image inside Mink's heart -- the pain is overwhelming, and he can taste the blood welling up as Mink continues, drags the knife, and he blacks out from pain.

Or he thinks he blacks out, but he can't; this isn't real. Instead, he drifts in a moment of shock, psychological shock, trying to adjust to the sensation of being in two places; his body down there, his head up here, and realizes that it wasn't just his head that was severed.

This was Mink's wish, after all, and this is Mink's mind.

He wanted to trap the demon in his body, created a filthy ritual to grind the body into the earth and keep the low and sinful desires in there, and elevate the head. Of course, it would work. Even if it wasn't Mink's mind conducting the reality around them, it's too in line with what he is. Of course Desire will stay with the body. Of course Reason will stay with the head. 

_Of course._

He's alone. It's gone; the other self is gone. As the pain ebbs and he tries to adjust to this surreal feeling of being bodiless, he can feel how entirely alone he is. It's just 'Aoba', and that's something he's never felt before. Even when he thought he had, he knows now he was just tuning that other voice out, refusing to listen to it. It wasn't that it was gone, it was just that he deafened himself to it. But now it's gone. He's severed completely. It's just him.

Aoba had thought he'd wanted this.

Slowly, he opens his eyes.

Mink is watching him. The look on his face has no triumph, and no cruelty either. And he doesn't have that other look, the one Aoba has seen too often -- he doesn't have that look like he's not seeing Aoba, he's just seeing opportunities and weaknesses, narrow cracks in Aoba's psyche to slide himself into and force rawly open and bare Scrap to the world. He just looks tired, lost, like all that forward momentum is gone. Aoba knows he did that; he failed Scrap, and stole the only thing that was driving Mink onward beyond that deep exhaustion.

But he looks into Aoba's eyes, and there's no confusion; this is his mind, and it's not like their bodies are gone, so of course Aoba's soul remains in his head, as Mink had thought. And perhaps he sees that it's only Aoba in there, because he smiles. 

Aoba has seen him smile before -- prideful, awful smiles, bitter double-edged knives aimed to cut both of them up. This smile is different. It's small, painful, lingers in only the faintest curve of his mouth, the tiniest crinkle of his eyes (and of course it does; Mink has no drive left, so why would any expression be larger?) but it's an expression of relief. _I've finally done something_ , that smile says. _It's not what I wanted, but I found something left to protect, and I protected it._

His heart aches. He wants to lie, to let Mink believe that, but he can't. For once, he has to protect himself, because he's not just one person. He has to do it for them both.

"Mink," he says. His voice comes out strange, breathy, but it does come out -- well, of course it would. His voice is his power, and the only thing that still has any significance in other people's mindscapes. "That wasn't a demon."

Mink's smile fades. It's not large enough for it to be overt, but that hint of light vanishes again. "...You're mistaken. You don't remember it, but I saw it--"

"It's me. It's me, Mink," he says, and he's crying, he can't help it. Talk about too little too late. He can understand, in this landscape, why Mink wanted to protect something, even if he can't really understand why it was him and not his scrap, not after everything Mink had done to dig it out of him. "It's me. He's me. He was me all along and now I'm only half a person."

Mink lowers his gaze to the body at his feet. Aoba's head is tilted in his grasp, and he almost vomits at the sight of his own body, the bloodied stump of his neck with the knife still buried in a fragment of exposed spine, but of course he has no stomach and so he can only gasp. The body is moving, grasping at Mink's feet and ankles as if pleading. That other self had wanted to be wrecked, Aoba thinks, to be destroyed, to be freed of being something that only existed to be denied.

Well, know he's acknowledged but they're separated.

It's wrong.

"I have to -- I need to be whole."

"It's too late," Mink says. "You've been severed. I'm -- done."

"You can't," Aoba says. "Then you have nothing, don't you!? At least achieve what you want!"

"You can't bring back the dead," Mink says. "We're all gone now. We need to let go."

My fault; Aoba thinks. "I'm not dead. You're not dead."

"I know. But--"

Aoba knows, while Mink loses his words, can't seem to say it. Mink knows, but at the same time, his mind is convincing him otherwise, because Aoba taught his mind, accidentally, to convince him otherwise.

But he can't give up. He feels like, perhaps, normally he'd give up if it went this far. If he could at least soothe someone's pain a little, he'd give up.

Watching that body, though, his body, grasping and begging silently and severed, and he can't.

It's insane. The thought's insane. But he tilts his eyes back up to look at Mink and thinks, we'll go deeper.

He puts what power he can into his voice -- under his command, only his, not that unconscious self who'd let him for so long, the feeling scratchy and unfamiliar around the ache of his neck -- and says: "I'll heal you to heal me, Mink, whether you want it or not: we're going to find whatever exists in your mind that will 'heal'--"

And they fall together, Mink gripping his head, past the fire, through water, into a deep, crawling dark forest, and he thinks, this may take a long time.

He may make worse mistakes along the way. He may force Mink into things Mink doesn't want.

But he's got nothing left but reason, and it's his turn to control things now.


End file.
